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Everest hotel a possibility
20/06/2007 10:20 - (SA)
Beijing - China has not ruled out building a hotel at Mount Everest base camp, a Tibetan official said on Wednesday, two days after work began on a paved road that will go half way up the world's tallest mountain.
"I cannot say that there will not be a hotel there in the future, but at the moment we have no plans for this," Qiangba Puncog, chairperson of China's Tibetan Autonomous Region, told journalists in Beijing.
Puncog highlighted the difficulties of regular people staying overnight at base camp, which is 5 200m above sea level.
"Expert mountain climbers bring their own tents and equipment and won't stay at a hotel," he said.
Nevertheless, Puncog pointed to the changing demands on Tibet, which is experiencing a tourism boom.
This has seen an accompanying rush of travellers to base camp, who mostly pack into four-wheel drive vehicles for a brief stopover as they make their way between the Tibetan capital of Lhasa and Nepal on the other side of Everest.
"In the past two years, a lot of tourists have gone to Everest base camp, even tourists coming from Europe and America like to go have a look at Everest," Puncog said.
"They have said the road is not good and is not safe, so the goal of improving this road is to make it more convenient for tourists."
Since a new railway was built from China's lower regions to Lhasa last year, tourism to the Himalayan region has grown by 39 percent, he said.
Tibet received 2.51 million visitors in 2006, with 154 000 coming from aboard, he said. The number of visitors is expected to rise to three million this year, he added.
Paving of the 108km gravel road to Everest base camp began on Monday and is also expected to help in efforts to bring the Olympic torch to the top mountain as part of the 2008 Beijing Games lead-up.
Organisers of the Games have said they intend to include the summit of Mount Everest in the 130-day worldwide torch relay leading up to the Games.
Puncog said paving the road to Mt Everest falls within $3.9bn overall plan to lay asphalt on up to 80% of Tibet's roads by 2010.
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